No spoilers here for the final season of “Breaking Bad,” which launched Sunday on a typically tragic note, but it’s time to compare notes.

Once you catch up on the series, counting down 15 more episodes on AMC (split into eight this season, eight next), you’ll no doubt be reminded of another brilliant TV antihero. How does Walter White, spectacularly played by Bryan Cranston, compare to Tony Soprano, the James Gandolfini HBO creation, in terms of the possibility of redemption? In terms of sheer evil?

Walt began as a sympathetic character, a high-school chemistry teacher whose cancer diagnosis sent him on a crazy path to cooking meth in order to provide for his family. Faulty logic resulted in misadventures that were not only illegal but deadly. His descent into amoral drug kingpin and deranged killer has been steady. He is now a power-mad king of Shakespearean proportions.

The pop cultural reverberations from 9/11 continue. Approaching the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001, we take stock: How “Rescue Me,” JayZ, Wilco, “Call of Duty” and more responded in the aftermath of the terror attacks. See the Denver Post entertainment staff reports, assembled here with video.

Farewell, guys of the 62 truck.
FX on Wednesday airs the series finale of “Rescue Me,” the television series that dealt most frankly with the emotional aftermath of 9/11.

When it premiered, three years after 9/11, this drama about New York City firemen was the first artistic endeavor to tackle the national trauma head-on in serialized storytelling form, laced with dark, sometimes juvenile humor.

Self-destructive Tommy Gavin (Denis Leary) was the tragic hero of the piece–he had a great deal to say about the word “hero” through the years, as well as regularly questioning the concepts of faith and fate.
“Rescue Me” treated the firemen as “the walking dead,” and dramatized the survivor guilt, alcoholism, broken marriages, uncontrolled rage and addiction to danger that haunt them still. Apparitions of dead buddies rising from the ashes of 9/11 were a recurring theme, as were instances of firemen dating the widows of their fallen comrades.

The odd interplay of reality and fiction added to the impact: the presence of 9/11 artifacts (including the jacket of deceased NYFD Captain Patrick “Paddy” Brown, which Leary wore in the pilot), and scenes shot at the evolving Ground Zero site were part of the drama.

Leary and co-creator Peter Tolan planned from the beginning to end the series’ run around the time of the 10th anniversary of 9/11. They do so, offering hope amid the heartbreak.

“I’ve always felt that the show just kept the idea of what happened on 9/11 alive,” Tolan said. “There’s an American response to things where they say, “Well, that happened, and we survived it, and it’s done. It’s over,” Tolan said, citing George Bush’s declaration of “Mission Accomplished” as an example. Rather than call it done, this show acknowledged “so many more tentacles of pain that are still being dealt with.”

FX will debut “Sons of Anarchy,” a gritty drama about a motorcycle gang starring Katey Sagal and Ron Perlman, on Sept. 3. This may be an acquired taste with tough to decipher dialog.

The seventh and final season of “The Shield” begins the night before, Sept. 2. (“Rescue Me” won’t be back until spring ’09, “Nip/Tuck” returns in January. “The Riches” isn’t officially dead but don’t bet on its return.)

CCH Pounder may have let slip a bit of a spoiler for the “Shield’s” ending. “Vic Mackey

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gets what he deserves!” she told assembled tv critics. I thought I felt the producers stiffen.

Will there be a movie? “How do you talk about making a movie when we don’t even know who lives?” said Michael Chiklis via satellite.

“Damages” looks to be on a roll with Marcia Gay Harden and William Hurt joining the cast. Glenn Close called the show “the consumate creative experience. Peeling away the layers of the character is a revelation for me as well as the audience.” In Europe recently, Close marveled that she kept running into people who told her the best writing for the screen is coming out of American television.

Newcomers “Heroes,” “Ugly Betty” and “30 Rock” got deserved nods but “FNL” deserved it and really could have used the boost going forward.

“The Sopranos” got 15 nominations but surprisingly was passed by “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee,” a flawed miniseries generally dismissed by critics, which won 17. Credit the Academy for at least adding lots of new faces to the competition, a point of contention in the past.

No surprise that HBO topped the networks with the most nominations, 86, but ABC did quite well with 70. Glad to see FX’s “The Riches” was recognized, via Minnie Driver’s performance as a con artist. And way to go, Denis Leary and “Rescue Me.”

Joanne Ostrow has been watching TV since before "reality" required quotation marks. "Hill Street Blues" was life-changing. If Dickens, Twain or Agatha Christie were alive today, they'd be writing for television. And proud of it.